by Victoria Lee
Well, Noam was willing to bet Lehrer knew a good deal more about magic than Swensson did.
Still. “Am I going to have to think about physics every time?”
“Not every time. You just need to have that knowledge accessible somewhere in your memory, or at least more accessible than it currently is. Your mind is like a filing cabinet, Noam. Your accessible memories are the folders on top. If you have knowledge in one of those top files, you can use it instinctively. And the more drawers in your filing cabinet, the more of those types of accessible memories you can have.”
Noam hoped Lehrer was right. If Noam was going to be any use to Brennan, he needed to be able to use his powers quickly. Not spend the first five minutes trying to remember old p-sets.
“Let’s do that again,” Lehrer said, drawing another coin out of his pocket, “and this time, make it happen as quickly as you can.”
They spent the next two hours just like that: first with coins, then ball bearings, then moving away from the ferromagnetic metals until Noam was semisuccessfully shifting Lehrer’s silver cuff links around the surface of his desk. Lehrer only ended the lesson when his assistant showed up, holding a briefcase, to tell him he was late for a meeting.
“Duty calls,” Lehrer said. He surveyed Noam, appraising, as he slipped the cuff links back onto his sleeves. “Practice this tonight, Noam. See if you can’t move something nonmetallic before our lesson tomorrow.”
A tall order, especially since Lehrer still expected him to do his readings and problem sets. But that evening, Noam shut himself away in the bedroom while the others were watching a movie, sitting on his bed with A Physics Primer open at his side. And he didn’t give a damn what Dara thought of all-nighters, because by the time the alarm rang on Noam’s bedside table for basic training, he hadn’t slept, but he’d sent a piece of notebook paper dancing around his pillow. And, in a fit of impulse, he’d rearranged all the books on Dara’s shelf without committing the offense of touching a single one.
Encrypted video from a private repository on the Ministry of Defense servers
The film opens on a bare room. Two figures enter the frame, a white-coated man pushing a boy in a wheelchair. He positions the chair in the center of the room, facing the camera. The boy in the chair is as thin and fragile as a baby bird; a metal contraption covers the bottom half of his face, something sharp and lethal affixed by spikes drilled into bone. He is approximately twelve years old.
The doctor adjusts the plastic tubing snaking out from beneath the boy’s hospital gown and rolls the IV stand out of the boy’s reach. Or what would be out of reach if the boy’s arms weren’t strapped down.
The boy shifts in his chair, lifting his gaze briefly to the camera. His eyes are unusually pale. He is conscious, if barely.
Off-screen, a VOICE: “Are you ready to begin?”
DOCTOR, after watching the boy’s heartbeat on-screen for a second: “Yes.”
VOICE: “Patient 103, session 49. December 14, 2012. Drs. Towson and Green presiding. Dr. Green, start with twenty micrograms.”
The first doctor injects something into the boy’s central line.
It’s a few seconds before the boy starts screaming, sound muffled by the contraption on his face.
VOICE: “Another ten.”
Dr. Green obeys. The boy’s body quivers violently, limbs tugging against the restraints.
VOICE: “Impress us, Calix, and the pain stops.”
But nothing happens. The off-screen voice orders the other doctor to increase the dosage again, and again.
VOICE: “I’m losing my patience.”
The boy’s eyes are wet, but when he glares at the camera, his gaze is hot enough to sear. Dr. Green prepares another injection, but he doesn’t get a chance to push it into the boy’s central line.
The room explodes in a sudden crash of sound, the camera skidding back several feet, then toppling over. Dust and brick crash down from the ceiling. Several voices are screaming.
VOICE: “Suppressant!”
The whole world—or so it seems—trembles on its axis. The boy’s body is barely visible through the debris, his chair still upright and his chin fallen forward onto his chest.
VOICE: “Dr. Green, the suppressant, now!”
A flurry of white coat, someone reaching for a length of plastic tubing with syringe in hand.
The video goes blank.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Two more weeks passed before Noam figured out the trick to getting into the government complex.
He checked the security system every day, some part of him still hoping he’d identify a failure in the ward and be able to break through. Knowing he never would.
Actually, in the end, it came down to good old-fashioned cracking.
Everything Noam ever wanted to know about Xerxes Security Systems—the company responsible for creating the biometric reader—was available online. Noam was a good liar, and technopathy could fake caller ID to make it look like he was sitting behind a desk at the National Cybersecurity Bureau. There was some problem with the biometrics, he told them. Signatures kept getting confused. Sometimes Joe Schmoe was getting logged as Jane Doe, and the NCB was fixin’ to switch to Safelarm if they didn’t quit piddlin’ around.
He had tech support on the line five minutes later.
Of course, Noam said, this was the NCB. National security meant Noam needed to have one of his own employees take care of the problem, no contractors. So he needed detailed schematics sent to his account.
Noam might not be able to use technopathy on a government network, but he sure as hell could use it on the NCB director’s phone. He had what he wanted within seconds, then deleted the email from the inbox and trash and kept the director’s phone from sounding a notification the entire time.
He used the schematics to clone the biometric-reader software and started practicing. He tried a dozen iterations of the same LOG injection before he finally figured out how to make the biometric reader match his print to someone else’s approved identity; then he deleted all record of his print being read in the first place.
And that was how he ended up standing outside a service door to the government complex at ten on a Friday, flopcell in hand, staring at the biometric security reader and wondering if he was being incredibly reckless.
It wasn’t really that hard; that was the sad part. Noam fed his program into the device, the latch clicked, and Noam pushed the door open with ease. His pulse raced in his chest, and he half expected to find Swensson standing there on the other side: I thought you might try something like this.
There was no one. The hall stretched out before him was identical to the ones in the training wing, all hardwood floor and brick walls. This part of the building was original warehouse, lovingly reconstructed; there were visible spots on the walls where someone had daubed over the crumbling mortar, rescuing it.
This was a terrible idea. Noam had a record. If he got caught breaking the law again, who would believe he was reformed?
Actually, no. Worse than that. Noam was pretty sure what he had planned for Sacha’s computer counted as espionage.
Planned. He hadn’t done it yet. As of right now, he was just a student out of bounds with plenty of plausible deniability. That would stay true right up until Noam plugged the keylogger into Sacha’s computer.
There was a distinct possibility he wouldn’t even find anything—but if he sat in the barracks one more night, eating expensive meat and doing nothing while kids got deported south, he’d never forgive himself. If he could get proof of political motive for the deportations, prove it wasn’t just contamination threat like the government claimed, that would help. Or, hell, some way to blackmail Sacha into shutting down the whole immigration division would do just fine too.
Noam pulled the steel doors shut. The security cameras watched from overhead, but these weren’t warded like the network—Noam had checked. He made sure they saw empty air where he stood. And that . . . that was a
rush. Today Noam wasn’t just another student but something greater, stronger and smarter than everyone else.
This same rush always got him into trouble, of course, but damn was it addictive.
Riding that thrill, Noam moved forward. He did his best not to creep like someone with something to hide, tempting as it was to cling to the walls and peer around corners. The plan only worked if he looked like he belonged here, or at least had a good reason to be in this part of the building. That meant shoulders back, head high, act cool.
He turned a corner and practically ran into a woman with a clipboard. Noam nearly froze, his blood running to ice when their eyes met. But if he froze he’d get caught, he’d be expelled, never allowed back here again—
Noam smiled instead, bright and cheery. “Heya!”
Heya?
The woman looked startled, but just said good morning and brushed past.
Holy shit, that actually worked.
Unbelievable. He had a cadet star right there on his sleeve.
Dizzy off his own success, Noam took the next flight of stairs up one floor. This hall was busier, lined with offices and conference rooms. Noam pulled out his phone and pretended to be absorbed by something on the screen—everyone else was doing the same, after all, with their phones and tablets and holoreaders. And all of it, all of it, any information not secured by the ward, was there at Noam’s fingertips. A tempest of data battered the boundaries of his mind: someone sending an email, an internet search for hair salon durham main st, someone flicking through saved photos depicting a happily drooling dog.
This must be what power felt like.
According to the map of the complex posted near the elevators, the executive offices were on the third floor. That’s where he’d find Sacha. Lehrer’s office wasn’t far either, though nowhere near the study where they usually met. How many offices did Lehrer have?
Noam was still scanning the map when the elevator arrived. Two men in suits loitered behind him, arguing about “deliverables.” Noam followed them onto the elevator. They, like everyone else in this place, apparently had no desire to confront him—and it was hard to stay afraid when people’s eyes skimmed past him like he was inconvenient furniture. This all seemed so . . . easy. Too easy.
But when he got to Sacha’s office, it was occupied; he sensed someone’s warded cell phone.
Maybe he could try to find Lehrer’s office instead. Noam could play off being Lehrer’s new student, use that as an excuse to get in and wait for him—only, no, because then Lehrer would figure out Noam snuck into the building with a fake ID.
Of course, standing here would draw the wrong kind of attention. One step at a time: first, an empty office. If he could just get himself in front of a computer, maybe he could hack in the old-fashioned way.
All the other offices on this floor were out. Too many people, judging by the number of phones and wristwatches glinting in his awareness. Upstairs, maybe? But when Noam got to the fifth floor, it was just more offices. He hesitated outside the one located directly above Sacha’s. It felt empty. He could just trip the latch and let himself in, the same way he let himself in downstairs, the whole this-fingerprint-totally-matches-your-databases trick. He reached for the flopcell.
“Can I help you?”
Noam spun around, his heart lurching up into his throat. The speaker was a severe-looking white woman, her arms full of folders. She was nearly as tall as Noam.
Shit shit shit shit.
“Um . . .”
“Minister Holloway is in a meeting,” the woman went on, clearly disapproving. “He won’t be back for two hours at least. Did you have an appointment?” Her gaze dropped down to the cadet star on Noam’s sleeve, and her frown deepened. Noam’s fist was clenched tight around the flopcell, but she hadn’t asked to see what he was holding, hadn’t noticed. Not yet.
Noam’s mouth was faster than his brain.
“I can wait,” he said, giving her a sunny smile. “I brought homework.”
“Name?”
Stupid. Stupid, stupid. “Dara Shirazi.”
The second he spoke, he worried she might recognize him—or not recognize him, more like. But despite that sharp breath sucked into her lipsticked mouth, she didn’t immediately yell for security. Instead she glanced at her watch. If she hoped to reach for her phone, perhaps to text Holloway and ask if he was expecting Lehrer’s ward, it was impossible with all the folders she juggled.
“Very well,” she said after a sigh. “You can sit in the anteroom.”
Hardly believing his luck, Noam trailed after her as she opened the door with her thumbprint and let him into the office. The anteroom was beautiful, elegantly decorated in forest green and mahogany. The woman sat him down on a luxurious chaise and then took her own chair behind the wooden secretary’s desk before the door to Holloway’s office.
Noam dumped his bag onto the sofa by his hip and dug out his holoreader. Well. He’d made it to an office. But with a chaperone giving him suspicious looks from ten feet away, he wasn’t getting on Holloway’s computer anytime soon.
He opened up a text editor and started typing, just to have something to do with his hands. The secretary’s phone was in her pocket, sleepy pulses of electrical noise . . .
That could work.
It barely took ten seconds. The secretary’s phone buzzed. She drew it out of her coat and glanced down at the screen, which Noam knew without looking had a message from her boss—Need you in room 142, urgent.
Thank god for unblocked radio signals.
“Can you keep yourself occupied for ten or fifteen minutes?” the secretary asked, even as she stood up and dusted off her pencil skirt.
“Sure,” Noam said brightly.
Still, she gave him one last sharp look before vanishing out into the hall. Noam stayed seated where he was until the door finally fell shut behind her. Then he leaped up, darting across the room to the mahogany door leading back to Holloway’s office; the secretary wouldn’t need more than five minutes to realize there was no urgent business on the first floor.
The computer was on the desk, asleep. Noam dug a pair of latex gloves out of his bag and snapped them onto his hands before grabbing the mouse to wake the monitor. And, of fucking course, Holloway had it set up for retina-scan verification. Good thing Noam had that flopcell all programmed up, or else he’d be spending forever trying to script his way past the front door.
He stuck the flopcell in its slot and waited five seconds, ten . . . why is it taking so long? Only then the screen flickered, and he was in, he was in.
He had to move fast; he needed to give himself time to clean up the cache when he was done so Holloway couldn’t check his process history later and wonder what he was doing on his desktop at 11:43 on Friday when he was supposed to be in a meeting.
Noam’s first instinct was to get on the server—but when he tried to click into that path, he got a password prompt.
No time for that. What else could he look into?
Maybe . . . email? Would that be unlocked?
No harm trying. And—yes, yes, it was, thank god for small blessings. Where was his other flopcell? Ummm . . . left pocket . . . no, right pocket, okay. Filter “sender: Harold Sacha.”
There.
Oh god. There were over four thousand results. Filter “sender: Harold Sacha, Atlantia.”
Noam opened the first message and skimmed past the usual salutations and small-talk nonsense.
. . . currently houses nine thousand citizens per square mile. Our infrastructure cannot support the additional numbers of Atlantian refugees. The disease threat alone is formidable—the last outbreak killed nearly seven thousand people, and approval ratings are lower every day. People don’t feel safe in their own country. The refugees bring sickness, and crime, and antiwitching sentiment—all threats to Carolinian values.
I know Calix has expressed his objections, but I’m overriding them. We’re expanding the camps. All incoming immigrants and registered
refugees should be relocated. Deport anyone without papers. If you encounter resistance, use necessary force.
Per Calix’s suggestion, I’ve offered Tom Brennan a position as official immigration adviser as a goodwill gesture. Calix will speak to him. In the unlikely event Calix finds himself less than persuasive, see that Brennan accepts.
H. Sacha
Chancellor of Carolinia
With every word he read, Noam’s stomach twisted a little tighter, until by the end of the letter it was a knot of nausea pulsing above his navel. This, this was the kind of thing Brennan needed to see.
It was foolish to pretend diplomacy was going to make any difference to someone like Sacha. Oh, he talked around it nicely enough, but Sacha’s meaning was clear.
Take all the foreigners to the refugee camps. Deport undocumented immigrants, even though returning to Atlantia is a death sentence. Obey, even if you find my decision morally repulsive.
Fuck him. Fuck him for trying to justify deportation using the same outbreak that killed Noam’s father. Atlantia was a viral cesspool. People had to flee to Carolinia if they wanted to survive. And when they got here, Sacha locked them up in camps and crowded slums, then blamed them when they fell sick.
When Carly found out she’d be sent back to Atlantia, they both cried for days because they knew what that meant. Then she shipped off in one of those canvas trucks, vanishing onto the freeway heading south. By the time her first letter made it to Durham, he’d already received the other letter, the one telling him Carly Jacobs was dead.
Noam’s anger was a cold shell closing around his skin.
Focus. Save the message to the flopcell. No—save all messages . . . ETA twenty minutes—never mind; save first twenty-five messages.
He pulled both flopcells out and stuffed them into his pocket, then opened the command interface and erased all history of what he’d done.